Tonks's Worst Friday
by Marauder
Summary: After unsuccessfully attempting to break up with Tonks, Remus resorts to interdepartmental memos. Tonks's response to them causes chaos in the Auror office. Mentions of Remus x Sirius and Remus x Kingsley. Not for Remus x Tonks fans.


The interdepartmental memo whizzed through the air and landed next to the piece of parchment that Tonks was using to write her report. The quill she had been dictating to hovered above the desk as she reached for the small paper airplane.

**Tonks:  
I'm sorry to have to do it this way, but I've been trying to break up with you all week and you haven't noticed. Very sorry.  
Remus**

She stared at it incredulously for a moment, and then grabbed a blank memo of her own. An interdepartmental – well, that was certainly a new one.

**Remus:  
I thought things were going fine. Where is this coming from?  
Tonks**

She figured it might take about two minutes to reach him in his new office next to Arthur Weasley's, perhaps another minute to reply, and two minutes for the new memo to fly back.

She overestimated.

**Tonks:** said the new memo, three and a half minutes later  
**It's really nothing personal about you. This just isn't right for me.  
Remus**

**That wasn't what I asked you** she wrote back, beginning to become frustrated. **Where is this coming from?**

The report wasn't getting done, but she had a feeling that the more crucial things in the office had removed it from her boss's mind, at least for the moment. Besides, how was she supposed to be writing a report when –

**Well, I'm not sure. No one really knows where it comes from.**

For a moment Tonks wondered if she should temporarily abandon the report to go and speak to Remus in person, but then she saw that her boss was only a few cubicles away. She wouldn't be able to leave unnoticed.

**Remus, please, I'm not going to ask this again. What are you talking about?**

The memo flew away. She bit her nails. The new memo came back.

She opened it.

"OH MY GOD!" she screamed, causing Harmodia Pax in the next cubicle to pour freshly hot coffee all over her lap. "HE'S GAY!"

_OH MY GOD_, wrote the quill in elaborate handwriting.

_HOLY SHIT, MY NEW ROBE!_

_HE'S_

_DAMN!_

_GAY!_

"Miss Tonks!" her boss exclaimed. "What is the – "

"It's fine, really, it's fine," she said quickly, shoving the ruined report under the wrapper of the Cauldron Cake she'd eaten at lunch. "It's fine!"

Harmodia's widened eyes appeared over the cubicle wall a few seconds later. "Who's gay?"

"My – my boyfriend! Well, I guess now he's my ex-boyfriend – I'm sorry, Harmodia, I can't talk right now – "

**Remus, you're gay? I mean, I thought you were happy being with me. Is there someone else? And what do you mean, you've been trying to break up with me all week and I haven't noticed?**

She ought to buy Harmodia a new robe; actually, no, _Remus_ should buy Harmodia a new robe, as he was the one who'd caused her to scream, but –

**1. Yes, I'm gay. 2. Not really that happy. 3. Not someone who's currently in the picture. 4. On Saturday, I said we should talk and you somehow started on a conversation about the Weird Sisters. On Sunday, I said we should talk and you told me that if you had ever had a daughter, you wanted to name her Max. On Monday I told you we really, really had to talk and you assumed it was about having lunch on Tuesday. On Tuesday I had a headache. On Wednesday I didn't get the chance to say that we needed to talk because your tongue was in my mouth the minute I opened it. On Thursday I said we needed to talk but then Sturgis floo'd in. Now it's Friday.**

Her thoughts were racing; unable to get most of them to form, she wrote,

**So, who's the person who's not currently in the picture?**

"Are you all right?" Harmodia asked. "I know you're busy, but I just wanted to check."

"I'm…oh God, I can't believe he's gay!"

"I understand," said Harmodia. "I never would have thought my ex-husband was gay, but believe me, a lot of things suddenly click in your mind when you find some book called _Wizard Lust and Fairy Dust_ in his sock drawer."

Tonks tried to imagine Remus reading _Wizard Lust and Fairy Dust_ and involuntarily whimpered. Harmodia patted her on the back.

The new memo came sailing in and hit Tonks in the nose. With shaking hands, she grabbed it from the air and opened it.

**Sirius.**

"Harmodia?" Tonks whispered. "I think I've been very, very thick."

**Remus: I'm sorry. I never would have guessed that. **

But…we've been together for three months. Why are you breaking up with me now?

She chewed down the rest of her nails. When the memo didn't arrive, she re-grew them and chewed them all again.

**Well, first of all, it took me a while to get up the nerve. I'm not great on this sort of thing. Second, well, to be completely honest, Kingsley Shacklebolt asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner tomorrow night - **

"KINGSLEY!"

He turned, the light shining on his bald head. "What is it?"

"Did – " She had to stop for a moment to catch her breath. "Did you ask _my boyfriend_ out to dinner?"

"I had no idea you had a boyfriend," he said in his calm, deep voice.

"Tonks! Shacklebolt!" The boss looked about ready to strangle both of them. "Is this the Auror office, or is this some sort of melodramatic soap opera of the kind that is best left to fifth-year students at Hogwarts!"

"He – he asked out my boyfriend!"

"Remus never told me he was your boyfriend."

"I can't BELIEVE this!"

The boss sighed. "Miss Tonks, you have exactly five minutes to reach some sort of peace with whatever it is that is distracting you from your work, and after that you will be sacked if I see you distracted one. More. Time. Is that clear?"

"Yes," she mumbled, and took off for Remus's office.

She found him sitting at his desk, quickly chewing a chocolate bar. The wrappers of five more were sticking out of the rubbish bin.

"You're gay," she began, her voice weak and tired, "you used to shag my cousin, and now you want to go out to dinner with Kingsley Shacklebolt, whom you failed to inform about me. Remus, is there anything _else_ I should know?"

He swallowed. "I'm really sorry it happened this way, Tonks."

She sat down. "This has got to be the worst Friday in my entire life."

She heard him open the drawer of his desk. "Here," he said, "have some chocolate. It'll help."

* * *

"Resolved?" asked the boss when she returned.

"Resolved."

"All right. I want that report before the end of the day."

Tonks sat back down at her desk, and began to carefully copy the good parts of the old report onto a new piece of parchment. She concentrated very hard and managed not to spill any ink, or knock over the inkwell. As the day drew to a close and she was starting on her final paragraph, a very small note landed on her desk.

**Tonks, do you want to borrow Wizard Lust and Fairy Dust? It's got this great scene where the two main characters are alone on the beach at night. Love, Harmodia**

Tonks smiled in spite of herself. Actually, it sounded like a rather interesting book; maybe, if it was any good, and if she had calmed down enough to talk some more to Remus, she'd ask Harmodia if she could lend it to him as well.

**Sure.**

Now that she thought about it, Remus wasn't the type who would name his daughter Max anyway.


End file.
